Same-sex Marriages Predicted

Members of a Chicago gay and lesbian lawyers association were warned Monday that they may one day have to defend same-sex marriages in Illinois.

The likelihood of that, however, depends on the outcome of a landmark case pending in a Hawaii state court.

Earlier this month, that state's Supreme Court ordered a new trial in a case in which two lesbian couples and a gay male couple, each of whom were denied marriage licenses, challenged the state's ban on same-sex marriages.

Justices told the lower Hawaiian court that it had to consider whether the state had a "compelling" interest to justify the ban in the face of a state constitutional guarantee of equal protection on the basis of sex.

The warning that local attorneys may be forced in the not too distant future to deal with the same issues came from attorney Evan Wolfson, senior staff attorney for the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund. Wolfson is one of two attorneys pressing the Hawaii legal challenge.

"We're going to win same-sex marriages within two years, and it will come here," he predicted confidently. "The question is, Are we ready?"

Wolfson addressed about a dozen other lawyers at a meeting held at the Chicago Bar Association.

If the plaintiffs win their case, and if Hawaii restructures its marriage laws, a same-sex couple that gets married there could be legally married here and elsewhere in the U.S., Wolfson pointed out.

But a spokesman for Illinois Atty. Gen. Roland Burris said it is too soon to tell whether such a ruling in Hawaii would be valid here.

"There is no answer yet," said spokesman Ernie Slottag. "We have talked about it. At this point we doubt it would be recognized in Illinois."

Slottag said state legal experts are only now beginning to study the issue and have arrived at no conclusion yet.

In Hawaii, attorneys representing the state are expected to argue against striking down the ban on several grounds, Wolfson said, including that allowing the marriages would convey approval of the homosexual lifestyle, that it could harm Hawaii's tourism industry, or that it could lure gays and lesbians to move there in large numbers.

In the 1970s there were a spate of unsuccessful lawsuits filed by gay couples who wanted to marry in Kentucky, Washington and Minnesota, Wolfson said.

Now that the issue is back, Wolfson said it was a good possibility that same-sex marriages will become state-sanctioned, and he said it is important for gays and lesbians to rally behind further challenges that may arise out of the Hawaii case.

"We have to be careful not to regard this just as a legal matter, but as a political matter too," he said.